


2:30 A.M.

by loveydoveywlw



Category: Batman (Comics), DCU (Comics)
Genre: Apologies, Father-Son Relationship, Gen, i'm on a father apologizing to his son kick babey!, there are several other characters mentioned but not seen so theyre not tagged akshdjkdsf
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-01-05
Updated: 2019-01-05
Packaged: 2019-10-04 08:49:31
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,340
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17301575
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/loveydoveywlw/pseuds/loveydoveywlw
Summary: Bruce shows up at Jason's apartment at 2:30 in the morning. He has an apology to make to his son.





	2:30 A.M.

**Author's Note:**

> happy non-denominational tcc gift exchange to sanju! this really wasn't what i planned to write, but it just kind of happened lol. i hope you like it because i doubt dc is ever going to give us anything alone these lines. it's NOT angsty. it's just good old fashioned "I'm sorry for doing these things" bruce & jason time. it's short and (hopefully) sweet, and exactly what you'd expect from the summary sdkfjhdsf

Jason finds himself sitting across from Bruce, his teeth viciously clamped down on his tongue so that he doesn’t say something he knows he’ll regret in the morning. The microwave clock reads _2:45_ in bright green across the kitchen, like a harsh judgement for both of them. They haven’t spoken in over twenty minutes. The tea that Jason made himself sits untouched in front of him on the table, and Bruce’s water has been empty for ten minutes. He doesn’t bother to ask for more, and Jason doesn’t bother to offer him any.

The silence stretches tighter, until Jason feels like he’s going to choke on it.

“Bruce—”

“Jason—”

They both snap their mouths closed. Jason takes a sip of his cold tea while his father plays with his glass. If they were in better standing, he would make fun of him for fiddling with his hands. He can still remember the times Bruce gently scolded him for constantly picking things up and playing with them, and here he was, doing the very thing he said not to. But that was _before_.

Before he benched Jason. Before he started seeing him as a failure. Before Jason died, and then came back, so angry and so hurt and so, so scared. Before Bruce decided he was done with him, for good. Before Jason decided he probably deserved everything he went through.

With heavy limbs and a heavier heart, Jason opens his mouth again. It’s much quieter than he had hoped (where did his righteous anger go? The kind that protected him from these very emotions?) when he asks, “What are you doing here, Bruce?” His eyes seek out something to look at that isn’t the rigid form sitting across from him.

It’s now _2:53_ , according to the clock. He wonders if it’s right, or if it’s out of sync and out of time, like him. And then he silently berates himself for trying to make a metaphor out of a microwave. After whatever this is with Bruce is done, he makes a note to call up one of his friends and spend some time with people who actually use their words. Maybe Eddie, who’s always in Gotham nowadays. Or Kyle, who will undoubtedly bring Connor along with him. Jason tries to act like it bothers him that they’re one of those couples that’s always conjoined at the hip whenever they’re together, but he’s never been a good actor, especially when it comes to his friends and their happiness.

_2:55._

Jason sucks in a long, quiet breath through his nose. Duke texted him over an hour ago to warn him that he was pretty sure Bruce was on his way. It’s been thirty minutes since Jason swung his door open before the knock could even finish and gestured him inside. Thirty minutes since he took the seat opposite of him at his small kitchen table and waited for some sort of communication.

He doesn’t know if he prefers the silence to the loud, bitter disappointment that Bruce has spat at him before. He thinks both might suck in equally bad ways, but the silence might hit him more in the long run. He can’t find it within himself to have his hackles raised in defense, when there’s nothing to defend himself against right now.

“I’m . . . sorry.”

Two pairs of steely blue eyes clash together, one in shock and one in resignation. Jason feels like he’s been sucker punched. Bruce doesn’t do apologies when he doesn’t think that he’s in the wrong. He just doesn’t.

Which means . . . what exactly?

Jason gets up enough nerve to ask, just barely. “What about this time, old man?” He tries to keep his voice light and airy; he doesn’t think he succeeds, but it was worth a shot.

“Everything,” he says, like it really is just that simple. Jason’s about to interrupt to demand an answer when Bruce continues in a rush, words unsteady, like a dam bursting. “I’m sorry about everything. Everything I wasn’t there for, and everything I _was_ there for but did wrong. Everything you went through that you won’t—can’t—tell me about just yet, if ever.” He shrugs, and Jason has to fight the urge to pinch himself. This is a dream. It has to be. First the apology, and then the shrugging? None of this makes sense.

If Steph were here, she would jokingly say that it’s _just not in character, dude._

Jason shifts uncomfortably in his chair. Somehow, the emotions have made the air even more stifling, if that were possible. He doesn’t think about filtering what comes out of his mouth, because it’s three in the morning, and if Bruce wanted a normal adult conversation, he would have gone to anyone else. “Is the world ending again?” He pushes himself up and dumps his tea just for something to do. “Is that what this is? Is the world ending? Are you dying?”

Behind him comes a breathy huff of a laugh. Jason instinctively smiles down at the mug in his hands at the sound. It’s been what feels like years since he was graced with the Reluctantly Amused Bruce Huff, and it feels a little like coming home.

“No,” his dad says. “The world is fine, to my knowledge. I’ve just been talking to some people”—Selina, probably, though Duke is a worthy suspect, too—“and they’ve made me see things I never would have let myself consider before. About trauma, mostly.” When he shoots Jason a rueful smile, it almost knocks him on the ass, because there are _lines_ around his eyes, now, and gray peeking out of his hair.

The infallible, timeless Bruce Wayne is now blatantly neither of those things, and it both hurts and heals to realize.

Afraid of ruining whatever’s happening between them, but unwilling to leave her out of the conversation after all that she’s done for him (they’re so similar that it fills him with a constant, low thrum of panic), Jason steps closer to Bruce and speaks in a soft, but steely, voice. “Have you talked to Steph yet?”

Bruce grimaces. “Yes.” He rubs at his jaw, and Jason has a dawning sense of where this is going. “She punched me, and then we hugged. Not for long, and she stormed off after, but it’s a start. I’m willing to wait.” He looks Jason directly in the eyes again. “For both of you.”

Jason has to sit down again, but the chair is too far away, so he just kind of collapses on the floor. Bruce makes a noise in the back of his throat like he’s been shot, and Jason can’t decide if he wants to laugh or cry, so his body chooses to do both. His eyes spill over, and they won’t stop, but neither will the hiccuping croaks of laughter leaving his body.

Eventually, Bruce puts a hand on the back of his head and guides him so that Jason can bury his head on the older man’s knees. He gets his nice, expensive pants wet, and eventually the laughter turns into great, heaving sobs, but he doesn’t want to move away. It’s only when he stops to catch his breath that he notices that the shaking isn’t just from _him_.

Jason sits up, wipes at his eyes with his arm like when he was a kid, and then laughs again, loudly.

“God,” he says with a wet snort. “We really are just two big idiots cut from the same cloth, huh?”

After a moment, Bruce twists his lips and grins down at his son. “No,” he insists, voice inexplicably fond. “You were always better than me.”

It’s not perfect. It probably won’t ever be perfect. There’s still too much left unsaid between them for it to stay this soft and open. They have too many fundamental disagreements, and too similar stubbornness. But as the clock hits _3:30_ , something in Jason’s chest wiggles and rattles loose, and it feels a lot like belonging again.


End file.
